Cher: Naked Miley is OK

Cher thinks computer games are worse for children than “seeing Miley Cyrus on a wrecking ball”.

Miley famously appears naked astride a huge concrete sphere in the promo for her track Wrecking Ball, in which she also suggestively licks a hammer. That coupled with her sexed-up image and seeming addiction to twerking has led some to call her a bad role model.

While Cher has previously slammed Miley’s performances, she has now had a rethink and believes the 20-year-old deserves a break.

“I don’t think the naked part is the problem,” she told British newspaper The Guardian. “Unfortunately, what happens now is that kids are exposed to everything that’s too old for them. You know, since the internet, since horrible PlayStation, you know, what’s the name of it? Hijack car… that car hijack thing [computer game series Grand Theft Auto]? I think maybe that is worse than seeing Miley Cyrus on a wrecking ball. Also, she’s trying to break the Disney stuff. When you make such an image, you have to hit it with a hammer. Or a sledgehammer!”

Sinéad O’Connor famously wrote an open letter to Miley, warning her not to become a victim of the industry. The two women then entered a war of words and Cher can see why Miley was annoyed by the comments. After splitting from her late ex-husband Sonny Bono, Cher had to reinvent her image just as Miley has done since leaving the Disney Channel.

“I was pushing an envelope that I wanted to push. I felt that looking the way I wanted to look and doing what I wanted to do made me more empowered. Sinéad O’Connor has a very different sense of herself than Miley Cyrus, so I don’t think it’s as dire as people are warning,” she said.

As well as her music career, Cher has enjoyed a turn on screen, most recently in 2010 movie Burlesque, which also starred Christina Aguilera as a naïve girl who became a sexy dancer.

The film was lambasted by critics and the 67-year-old icon can totally see why. She is embarrassed by it and is in no doubt about why it wasn’t successful.

“In Burlesque, which was horrible, I had no love interest, I was running this [troupe], that’s who I was,” she explained.

“It could have been a much better film. It was always sad that it was not a good film. [Steve Antin was a] terrible director! Really terrible director. And really terrible script. I remember him saying to me, ‘I don’t care about what you say; I just want to shoot the dance numbers.’ Had it been shorter, it would have squeaked by and been a really good popcorn movie.”